Astronomy Links
Still have a question?
Sci.Astro
Another place to get your questions answered is using the usenet news groups
sci.astro (for general astronomy questions),
sci.astro.amateur (discussion on
building your own telescope, buying a telescope, doing your own observing,
astronomy clubs, etc.), and sci.astro.research
(moderated group about current research topics - note that is really for the
professional astronomer). Before you try out those news
groups, see if your question has been answered in the ``Frequently Asked
Questions'' list known as the
sci.astro FAQ
list or the sci.space
FAQ list (you may want to try the sci.astro FAQ list first). If you do
post a message to one of the news groups, be sure to include your email address
in your message so people can reply back to you (especially if you don't read
that news group that often!).
Royal Greenwich Observatory Information Sheets
The Royal Greenwich Observatory publishes many astronomy information pamphlets
for the general public and new media. See if they have the infomation at their
General Astronomy
Information site.
SEDS
See if the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space have the
answer on their galaxy
of images and information pages.
What was the Star of Bethlehem?
A question asked of astronomers at Christmas time. So just in time for the
holiday season is my response to ``what was the
star of Bethlehem?''
What's Happening Up There This Month?
There are several web sites that tell about the interesting things happening
this month for the backyard astronomer. Here's a list of good ones I've found:
- Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar.
We've used this calendar in some of our introductory astronomy courses. The
on-line version has only text while the paper version has a calendar with the
important phenomena listed in the day blocks and a crude sky map on the reverse
side. This web page gives a chronological list of events for the observer in
the northern hemisphere (particularly for those at the same latitudes of the
48 contiguous states in the United States). Abrams Planetarium is at Michigan
State University in East Lansing, Michigan.
- Sky Events from Astronomy Magazine.
This web page gives a brief narrative of where each of the planets will be in
the sky this month. It also gives information about other celestial wonders
visible to the naked eye or through a typical amateur astronomer's telescope.
- Morehead Planetarium Sky Calendar.
First a brief narrative description is given for each of the planets and
other notable objects and then a calendar of events follows. Morehead
Planetarium is at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North
Carolina. This web page is text only.
- Woodlands Observatory in Adelaide, South Australia has sky charts and
a sky almanac for those ``down under''! Their
Sky Chart
requires a graphical browser. Their Sky Calendar comes in two forms, a
graphical one
that has cute icons at the bottom
and a non-graphical one
that has the same data tables without the icons.
All of the events are in hard-to-understand text abbreviations so be sure to
make a copy of the glossary of abbreviations at the top of the calendar page.
Astronomy News
Sky and Telescope distributes a weekly news bulletin.
This bulletin gives information on all areas of astronomy, from naked-eye
phenomena to the latest discoveries by those hard-working professional
astronomers. They have bulletins that go back several months (at least) and is
good way to get up-to-date information about current interesting happenings
``up there.''
Ron Baalke is the Information Man for Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He distributes
a calendar of space missions and astronomical happenings at the
JPL Calendar site. All
of the major events for the space missions for the upcoming year (plus) are
listed.
The American Institute of Physics distributes the
Physics News Update
every week. Occasionally there will be astronomy discoveries listed.
Buying and Using Telescopes and Accessories
Sky and Telescope also has a lot of good information/tips for the amateur
astronomer (tips for naked eye observing, buying and using binoculars,
telescopes, and eye pieces, and photography, etc.) in their
Backyard Astronomer
web page. If you're wondering about a telescope, eye piece, astronomy software,
or other astronomy instrument you've seen advertised, be sure to check out
their Test Reports
web page to see if it has been reviewed by their panel of experts.
Astronomy Magazine gives tips on buying the right telescope or
binoculars for you or your child in
their Observer's Guide.
You'll also find information about the telescope accessories and astronomy
software on the market.
David Lent has some good advice on Buying a Telescope for $500 or
less.
He discusses the parts of a telescope, the features to look for, and also which
telescopes to avoid.
Sky Surveys
- The Space Telescope Science Institute has created a
Digitial Sky Survey for the public.
You can find the coordinates (Right Ascension and Declination) of an
object and a picture from their survey. The pictures are in FITS
(Flexible Image Transport System) format (used by many professional
astronomers) and GIF format.
- Tom McGlynn has compiled surveys of the sky at 15 different wavelength
bands (from gamma ray to radio) into a very nice tool called
SkyView. You can enter either the
coordinates of an object or simply its name and which wavelength bands you want
and it will put together the pictures in either GIF or FITS format.
AstroEd
An excellent reference of astronomy links for the astronomy student and
educator alike is Alan Cairns'
AstroEd
page. This is part of the HPCC K-12 Outreach Project at the University of
Washington.
Alan has astronomy hypertext documents and curricula, astronomy images,
astronomy history documents on-line at this site. He's also got a link to
``Ask an Astronomer'' whose expertise is in the area of your question. He's
also got a link to my lecture notes (good!).
Other Introductory Astronomy Classes
There are other astronomers who use the WWW in their teaching. These are the
ones I know about. If you know of other good sites, please let me know!
- Kevin Long's Introductory Astronomy Course.
Kevin teaches at SUNY Brockport, NY.
- John Wallin's Astronomy 105
and 106 courses.
John Wallin teaches at George Mason University (Fairfax, VA).
- Astronomy HyperText Book
at the University of Oregon.
- Astronomy 150
(introductory planetary science) course at the University of Washington.
- Bob Grabhorn, an astronomer at Indiana University at Bloomington, taught a summer
astronomy course at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and gathered his
students' research projects and lecture notes
into one place. This page contains some huge graphics images so it will take
a while to bring up.
- Doug Ingram, another UW astronomy PhD has a large
teaching resource library.
This site has his
UW teaching materials so they are now about 2 years old. He is now teaching at
Texas Central University. Once I get his TCU web site address, I'll put in the link.
- Jim Napolitano, is teaching an
introductory astronomy course
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the fall of 1996. He will be building
his web site throughout the semester. His lecture outlines are in FrameMaker
format instead of HTML, so you won't be able to read each week's lesson without
that software.
Galaxy, AstroWeb, and A.S.P.
For further exploration into what astronomy resources are available on the
web, take a look at the Astronomy page
compiled by the Galaxy crew at TradeWave. It's huge set of links so budget
some extra time for browsing! The AstroWeb Consortium
has put together a set of links of interest to professional astronomers.
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific
also has a large set of resources and links to astronomy information.
Astronomy Research on the Web
I have a list of sites that I've used for my research called
Astronomy
Research on the Web. It's not a be-all, end-all list of lists, but, rather,
just the ones I've found especially helpful.
You can always email me. My address is at the bottom of this page. However, I am
teaching four classes of astronomy now at Bakersfield College and I am in charge
of the planetarium there so I may not be able to reply right away. If you have
a question that needs a quick answer, use the web links above! Enjoy the
skies and keep them dark!
last updated 10 August 1997
Nick Strobel --
Email:
strobel@lightspeed.net
(805) 395-4526
Bakersfield College
Physical Science Dept.
1801 Panorama Drive
Bakersfield, CA 93305-1219